After puurchasing alot of books that seemed cryptic compared to this one it really opened my eyes as to the teachings being not literal but I got a taste of gnosis. Just a taste realizng that we dont have to take literally the gnostic and apocryphal teachings of Jesus. Also I noticed from reading Mead that there are pagan aspects to the scriptures as well. That joyed me because SOphia has come to me as an archteypal representative of the Divine Feminine in all her aspects of light and darkness. ANd after much torture over fundy past associations my eyes have finally opened unto these truths. I notice a distinctness for some reason to the deep truth outstretched to us in this book. If one has ears to hear and they are unclouded by surface sights and can intuitively glimpse it there is a distinct voice and it is not one telling us to renounce but to look deeper than we do into the things we percieve as so and as not so.....After all. Isnt heaven within and not without? BLessed be......Katherine